Open Water

by Caleb Azumah Nelson

  When the food arrives, the doorbell buzzes, despite you leaving instructions to ring when they get here; she doesn’t want to wake her mother. You hear her telling off the delivery man, fighting a battle she has already lost at the door.

  She joins you on the sofa, setting the pizza box between you, tearing a slice away, holding out her hand to protect from the strings of cheese. You do the same, folding your slice in half so it becomes food and plate; she mimics you and lets out a sigh of hunger being sated. As she does so, reclining into the sofa, she reaches for your hand, and you take it, fitting together like this is an everyday. She’s wearing rings on her fore and ring fingers, the bands cool between your own. Neither of you dare look at one another as you hold this heavy moment in your hands. You’re ­light-­headed, and warm. You’re both silent. You’re both wondering what it could mean that desire could manifest in this way, so loud for such a tender touch. It’s she who breaks the moment.

  ‘We can’t eat holding hands like this.’

  ‘My bad.’

  ‘No one’s bad.’

  She switches on the TV, flooding the room with noise. It’s a Spike Lee joint, so it’s audacious and provocative and brash. A remake of his nineties film She’s Gotta Have It. The couple on screen are having sex, loudly, but in a way that’s too clean to reflect the intense mess of being intimate with another.

  ‘You still having that dry patch?’

  ‘Yessir,’ she says. ‘You?’

  ‘Dry as an uncreamed elbow.’ She bites her bottom lip but her eyes are grinning. ‘Go on,’ you say. ‘You can laugh. But ­wait – you and Samuel only broke up a month ago.’

  ‘Long enough,’ she replies.

  ‘Agreed.’

  ‘I might give up soon.’

  ‘I feel like celibacy is looking more appealing than trying at this point.’

  ‘How long has it been?’

  ‘Eight months.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘You heard me.’

  ‘That’s not a dry patch, that’s a drought.’

  You wonder what Samuel would think of this conversation. But then he doesn’t mention anything to you, not any more. Since this friendship has blossomed, Samuel has withdrawn, growing more distant as the pair of you here grew closer. When they split, you checked in on him, but the calls did not go through, the messages went undelivered. Samuel had severed the connection. You wonder how he is feeling and what he would say if this was a picture he were privy to. You push the thoughts and any guilt away, laughing off the suggestion, reaching for another slice of pizza.

  It’s easier to do this, to open a box and close it quick, seal it with sharp quips. It’s easier to let your bodies do the same, taunting and teasing, short grazes, soft sighs. Working yourselves into a feverish frenzy, your laughter knocking across the room, the noise protecting your truths, or so you both think. You do this until you’re both tired, and she stretches her long body across the sofa, her head resting in your lap. Heavy like the moment in your hands. You rest one hand on her scalp, reaching through the dense curls, the other settled between her waist and hip.

  ‘Don’t let me fall asleep,’ she mumbles. Shortly after, you close your eyes too.

  You wake in the early hours of the morning and it’s like you’re in the memory of the present. Something quiet from the speaker. Her head hot and heavy in your hands. Mouth dry, hazy vision. Your stirring lifts her from her sleep, and you can tell it’s the same for her, trying to find lucidity in the mist.

  ‘I need to get into bed,’ she manages. ‘You should stay.’

  ‘OK,’ you say. She rises and you stretch your limbs to replace the presence of hers. She shakes her head, and beckons.

  You don’t talk here, in her bedroom, where it’s dark and hot and heavy, yet welcoming, like being clasped in an embrace by something much larger than you. She pulls down the blinds and draws the curtain, and now it’s blackness, faint light of dusk spilling from the hallway. She waits for you to undo your belt, take down the buttons of your shirt, makeshift pyjamas of a vest and underwear, before she closes the door and thrusts you further into the dark. She climbs into bed by memory and you feel your way towards her. There’s a little room to manoeuvre but she pulls you close. Your face rests on the pillow and she tucks her face into the curve of your neck. Your legs are tangled in order, hers, yours, hers, yours, and your arms curl around each other’s backs. You fit, as if this has been your everyday. You don’t talk here, in her bedroom, where it’s dark and hot and heavy, making quick light steps towards sleep. You don’t talk here, but even if you did, the words would fail you, language insufficient to reflect the intense mess of being this intimate with another.

  You have to leave when light starts to sneak under the blinds. You wake and the fever has broken and left havoc in its place. Thoughts skip around your mind. Dry mouth, hazy vision. Your stirring doesn’t wake her this time, but as you reach for her door handle, she lets out a small sound of protest. Takes your hand, reaching as she did, locking in, kissing the skin. There’s nothing more to say here. You lean down and kiss the top of her head.

  The next day, you’re in the lift once more, rising to the sixth floor. You knock on her door. An open smile. You’re shooting today for the project which started this all, and you feel a nervous shake as you embrace, but you don’t know if it is because of the project or what happened last night. You’re wondering how you would explain the latter to the witness you requested. But nothing happened, you would say. The witness would shake their head, as if to say, Don’t you know what that means? Lying together, sober, with only the vague shape of her as a guide for existing, feeling safe. Is that what love is? The feeling of safety? And here you are, safe in her presence, separated only by each other’s silence.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ you ask.

  ‘I’m nervous. About this,’ she says, pointing to the camera equipment you’re setting up.

  ‘You’ll be fine. You’ve got this.’

  ‘About us too.’ A pause. ‘Do we need ­to –’

  The doorbell goes.

  ‘Talk,’ she says. ‘I was gonna ask if we need to talk. But like, nothing happened, right?’

  ‘Right. Nothing happened.’

  ‘We’re all good?’

  ‘Definitely. Right?’

  ‘Right.’ The doorbell goes again.

  ‘You should get that.’

  ‘You should get that.’ You both smile at the absurdity of it all. At the feeling of feeling absurd.

  You spend the afternoon taking photos of her friend, who is a poet. Later, much later, you’ll look up some of the poet’s work, and find ‘Before Leaving’, a cyclical poem about things which go unsaid. A poem about comings and goings, and the gaps between a dial tone, those pauses like percussive breaks where your own breath is the loudest. The poet sees words unspoken in the embrace between you and her. The poet sees both the tremble in the water and the sinking stone which caused the ripple. The poet sees you, the poet sees her, and you’re grateful for some lucidity in this mist.

  You share a table at dinner, the three of you, and when you’re departing, the poet who sees you and her, sees the ripple and the sinking stone, tells both of you to stay out of trouble.

  The trouble is, that afternoon, a day after she arrived, a day after the fever dream began, you’re taking photos and she looks towards you while the poet is talking. She loses concentration for a moment, and holds your gaze, for one, two, three, before recovering. When you get the images, you’re sure you stopped breathing, and held the gaze, one, two, three, before recovering, a slight judder to the camera as you were jolted back to the present. The trouble is, this is trouble that you welcome. You realize there is a reason clichés exist, and you would happily have your breath taken away, three seconds at a time, maybe more, by this woman.

  The trouble is, you are not on
ly sharing dinner tables with her, you are in the process of beginning to share your life in a way you have not before. You’re walking from the station to her house, the street lights dousing you in tough glares at intervals. You’re talking about a play you have both seen, The Brothers Size. You saw it twice in its short London run, and both times found your breath robbed, hot tears trailing one after the other down your cheeks. It is a play about the conditions under which unconditional love might break; in the end, one finds they will never not cry for their brothers.

  ‘I saw it too, and it got me, but I don’t know if it got me like that,’ she says.

  ‘I helped raise my brother. I know what it’s like to love like that. To have joy and to be pained, and sometimes to have real anger towards him. He’s my best friend but sometimes he’s like my son too.’

  She doesn’t look at you while you cry in the darkness but she does take hold of your hand, rubbing her thumb across the back. This closeness, this comfort, is enough.

  11

  The trouble is, the day after, the haze arrives like a night mist. You’re sitting in the National Theatre with Isaac, amongst cold bricks and concrete, warm, fever unbroken. You’re having difficulty concentrating. You long for her touch. The night before, you held each other in the same way.

  ‘Do you have to leave?’

  ‘I should. I have to return all this equipment kinda early.’

  ‘How early?’

  ‘He wants it by seven.’

  ‘Shit, that is early.’ She nestled closer, if that were possible. ‘Will I see you tomorrow?’

  ‘Definitely,’ you said.

  The trouble is, and let’s explain this trouble, yes: you are tumbling in the heat of a fever dream, and you surface only to plunge once more. Donatien Grau’s words: When the mind is lost in ecstasy, there is no condition for ­self-­reflection, ­self-­questioning. You’re not asking yourself questions. You’re not asking yourself about the conditions under which you and she met. You’re not thinking of the night in the pub when you urged Samuel to introduce the pair of you. You’re not thinking of the night you all found yourselves in her flat, your own attraction bright like a small flame. You’re not thinking of the fact that that friend no longer considers you so, will not return your calls or text messages. You’re not thinking of what it looks like. You’re not thinking. You’re feeling. You are in a memory of something yet to happen. You want to sigh with hunger sated. You want to hold her in the hot darkness. You ­want –

  ‘You hear me? Wanna go to a show tonight?’ Isaac asks.

  ‘I’m meant to be seeing my friend,’ you say.

  ‘Your friend, huh?’

  ‘My friend,’ you insist, though who are you trying to convince? Isaac or yourself ?

  ‘Let’s get drinks before, then. What time you seeing her?’

  ‘How’d you know it’s a woman?’

  ‘This isn’t my first rodeo.’

  ‘What you mean?’

  ‘You look like you got hit by a bus, and you dusted yourself off, and did it again for the hell of it. You look like you’re wondering when the next time you can get hit by that bus is.’

  ‘What a strange analogy.’

  ‘Am I lying?’

  No, he is not. You are back again, in a memory of something yet to happen. You want to sigh with hunger sated. You want to hold her in the hot darkness. You want your bodies to say what cannot be otherwise said.

  Later that evening, she asks you to join her drinking in Bethnal Green. You don’t think, announcing to your friends that you are leaving. Isaac looks on with a knowing glint in his eye, and says nothing.

  ‘But you just bought a ticket to the show,’ another friend says.

  ‘Can I have it?’ his companion says, having joined your group in the past few minutes.

  ‘Done. Problem solved.’

  You leave your friends, setting off at pace, through Soho towards Piccadilly Circus. Brown line to Oxford Circus, red line to Bethnal Green. You’re drawing a line towards her. No, the line was there, is always there, will always be there, but you’re trying to reinforce, to strengthen.

  Your phone lets out a loud ping as you emerge from the Underground station.

  Where are you?

  Be there soon.

  ‘I’m drunk,’ she says when you slide alongside her at the restaurant. The sheen on her eyes is a giveaway, silver like mirrored glass. She takes your hand in hers, and rests it in your lap. In this way, she is drawing a line towards you; she has done so since this fever dream started. Or no, you drew the line towards her when you asked for an introduction. She drew the line back when she asked you to get an Uber to her house. The line was there, is always there, will always be there, but you’re both trying to strengthen it.

  It’s happy hour at the bar, and she introduces you to her friends, Nicole and Jacob. An assortment of cocktail glasses clink and clunk and bump against one another, the tinkle of laughter a chaser. You’re settling in, curling into each other, her head lolled on your shoulder, when Jacob points at you, then at her.

  ‘So you two are a thing, right?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘You two are . . .’ He winks, obtusely.

  If only he knew. This crude white man who has spent most of the time you have been at the table explaining his ­self-­importance – he’s in advertising, he tells ­you – is he to be your witness? Were you to lean over and explain that you and she were not a thing in the way that he thought, but in a way in which neither of you could comprehend? To tell him that the seed you pushed deep into the ground has blossomed in the wrong season, the flourish of the flower a surprise for you and her both?

  ‘Come on,’ he says. ‘It’s obvious.’

  ‘What’s obvious?’ she says.

  ‘You two are fucking.’

  ‘Absolutely not.’

  ‘You are.’

  ‘We are not.’

  ‘We’re all friends here,’ he gestures to the table. ‘Two ­good-­looking people, I don’t see what’s to hide.’

  Perhaps this is not the witness but the man sent for you to confront yourselves.

  ‘We’re not having sex,’ you say.

  ‘Hmm,’ the man says, taking a sip from his beer. ‘Well, you’d make a good couple.’ He smiles to himself. Her grip tightens around your hand. You hadn’t noticed that you had been facing this man together until that moment.

  ‘Wait, how did you two meet?’ Jacob asks.

  ‘A friend introduced us.’

  ‘Your boyfriend?’ Nicole asks, unhelpfully.

  ‘Your boyfriend introduced you two?’ Jacob is in danger of making his way to your side of the table.

  ‘We’re not together any more.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ he says, taking real pleasure.

  In the fresh night air, walking hand in hand, she pulls you short. She takes a moment to steady herself, her eyes silver like mirrored glass, the reflection of yourself warped and warbled. You’re standing here, on Brick Lane, on a Monday evening. She arrived on Saturday night, and you didn’t think when you drew a line towards her. Did not think about continuing to return each day. Did not think as you reach a hand to her face and she nudges against your palm, a brief pleasure crossing her features. She stops and takes both your hands in hers.

  ‘You have to promise nothing will change,’ she says.

  ‘I can’t promise that.’

  ‘You have to. I love you too much for this to change. You’re like my best friend,’ she slurs. ‘You’re so much more.’

  ‘OK, OK,’ you say, trying to steady yourself. ‘I promise.’

  Dim darkness of her room, blind pulled, curtains drawn. A bottle of water atop her chest of drawers to ward off a hangover. Rarely enough, but no harm in trying. Anyway, she announces that she has to change into her pyjamas, and you
turn away from her, because right now, the thing you crave to be lost in is not her flesh. She taps your shoulder and slips a hand onto your waist to turn you back to face her. She stands on your feet and lays her head against your chest, listening to your heart thud like a bassline.

  ‘Slow. It’s really slow. It must be peaceful in there.’

  She climbs into the bed and leaves the duvet open like a door. Like the night before and the time before that, she waits and watches as you strip off any inhibitions at this midnight hour. You go to clamber in beside her and she shakes her head.

  ‘Light. Please.’

  Before you flick off the lamp, your eyes meet in the silence. The gaze requires no words at all. It is an honest meeting.

  ‘Goodnight,’ she says.

  ‘Goodnight.’ And for a moment, you surface from the fever dream, only to plunge once more.

  Tonight is different, but the same. She slides a leg in between yours and pulls herself close and her deep breaths soften and round. You feel your body begin to slacken and sink towards sleep when she slips her leg out, turns away from you. You lie on your back facing the unmoving blackness of her ceiling when you feel her hand tapping against you.

  ‘You OK?’

  ‘Arm,’ she says.

  ‘Huh.’

  ‘Arm.’

  The arm which isn’t trapped between her body and yours stretches towards her, and she pulls it across her body like a blanket, curling in tight. With her foot, she traces lines across your own, finally settling her lower limb between your calves. She slides down her bed a little, so she can tuck herself in the space between your chest and your chin, the mane of soft curls ticklish against your neck. You fit together, like this is an everyday. The hand holding your arm reaches for your own, spreading your digits between hers. Locking in. Tonight is different, but the same. Under what conditions does the uncontainable stay contained? Things unsaid don’t often remain so. They take shape and form in ways one doesn’t expect, manifesting in touches, glances, gazes, sighs. All you have wanted to do was hold each other in the darkness. Now, you have opened the box and left it unguarded in the night. You have both placed faith in the other that you will wake up intact. You have acted on a feeling. You are in a memory of the present. You are tumbling through a fever dream, surfacing only to plunge once more.